Monday, 3 June 2019

BANK employees are pilling up pressure on their employers
to pay salaries in United States dollars arguing that the local currency has
become worthless.

"We are pushing for banks to pay the USD salaries that
we are contractually entitled to or be paid the equivalent. We are already
preparing to go to court for this. We are in disagreement (with our employers)
and we are filing our court papers next week (this week)," Zimbabwe Banks
and Allied Workers' Union (ZIBAWU) secretary-general Peter Mutasa said.

According to a National Employment Council agreement on
salary and wages circular, bank employees were supposed to get a 42, 09% salary
increase effective January this year.

"Accordingly, the present collective bargaining
agreement shall be read together with these two preceding agreements. This
further agreement shall be deemed to have come into effect on 1st January, 2019
and applicable until 31 December 2019. In accordance with clause 6 of SI 150 of
2013, the parties hereby agree that the year on year inflation from agreed
sources is 42,09%. Accordingly, the parties have agreed to effect a 42,09%
salary increase on the current minimum for the period January 1 to December
31," the circular read.

The agreement is yet to be effected.

If this increment was adopted the lowest grade (N/C) would
earn $936,50 from $659,09 with the highest grade (DPV) getting $1 486,15 from
$1 045,92.

Bankers Association of Zimbabwe president Webster Rusere
was not available for comment.

According to the central bank, all banking institutions,
with the exception of one, reported profits for the year ended December 31,
2018, with a 61,06% increase in aggregate profits from $241,94 million in 2017
to $389,85 million in 2018.

Mutasa insisted that workers were entitled to get paid in
US dollars because the agreement with employers was signed in hard currency.

"Our salaries since 2009 have been in US dollars. Our
agreement with employers is in US dollars and a third party cannot even the
Reserve Bank can legally (change) these agreements.

There is also a natural process of dollarisation that the
government has allowed wherein businesses have been allowed to price in US
dollars. Government departments like the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority are also
getting fees in US dollars, hospitals; schools have also followed this
trend," he said.

"Again the announcement by Cabinet that they would be
ring-fencing certain government contracts that were denominated in US dollars
prior to promulgation of SI 133 of 2019 shows that it is not feasible for some
sectors of the economy to earn in Real Time Gross Settlement, while all other
sectors are dollarising. Only workers are being sacrificed and that cannot be
allowed. Allowing this to continue will be unfair because that amounts to
redistributing wealth from the poor workers to the rich." Newsday